Transcript SLB-006 Spiritual Life Basics Lesson 6 The Necessity of a Spiritual

SLB-006
Spiritual Life Basics
Lesson 6
The Necessity of a Spiritual Life:
The Times in Which We Live
1
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•Islam
does not have nearly as many sects and divisions
as does Christianity, but there are a few and it is worth
knowing something about them. The two biggest are the
Sunnis and the Shi'ites, with the Sunnis being the
largest of all and representing the vast majority of
Muslims. Shi'ites are a minority everywhere except Iran.
2
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•After
them, the two most influential sects are the Sufis
and the Wahhabis. The Sufis represent a mystical
tradition in Islam, whereas the Wahhabis are a strict
traditionalist tradition which is dominant on the Arabian
peninsula, but has little support elsewhere.
•Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab could be considered the
first modern Islamic fundamentalist. He made the
central point of his reform movement the idea that
absolutely every idea added to Islam after the third
century of the Mulsim era was false and should be
eliminated.
3
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•Unlike churches, mosques are not denominational.
•Despite the differences among Muslims, traditional
Friday prayer services are largely similar and Muslims
of any background are welcome to attend services at
any mosque.
4
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•InMuslims,
Iraq, 80 percent of the country is populated by
with 60 percent of these being Shiites,
according to the World Almanac and Book of Facts.
However, with Sunni Muslim Saddam Hussein as head
of state, the Shiite population was largely ignored, and
at times repressed, for over a decade. With U.S.
occupation of Iraq, things are looking different for the
Shiites.
5
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•The
division between Shiite and Sunni Muslims
occurred more than 1,000 years ago during the
formations of an Islamic nation. According to
encylopedia.com, Sunnis worship the first four caliphs
(spiritual heads of state) as Muhammad’s successors,
but the Shiites only recognize the fourth, Ali, because he
is an alleged descendent of Muhammad.
6
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•Shiites
and Sunnis do maintain many of the same
Muslim practices such as fasting, praying five times a
day, and making a “haj” to the holy land, Mecca. “This
basic political split is what divides them,” said
Armouche. “But, it’s only political, and in all other ways
Sunni and Shiite are very similar.”
7
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•Worldwide
there are roughly one billion Muslims,
according the World Almanac and Book of Facts. Of
these, 90 percent are Sunni, thereby creating an
unusual situation in Iraq with its Shiite Muslim majority.
8
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•Both
Sunni and Shia Muslims share the most
fundamental Islamic beliefs and articles of faith. The
differences between these two main sub-groups within
Islam initially stemmed not from spiritual differences, but
political ones. Over the centuries, however, these
political differences have spawned a number of varying
practices and positions which have come to carry a
spiritual significance.
9
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•The
division between Shia and Sunni dates back to the
death of the Prophet Muhammad, and the question of
who was to take over the leadership of the Muslim
nation. Sunni Muslims agree with the position taken by
many of the Prophet's companions, that the new leader
should be elected from among those capable of the job.
This is what was done, and the Prophet Muhammad's
close friend and advisor, Abu Bakr, became the first
Caliph of the Islamic nation.
•The word "Sunni" in Arabic comes from a word meaning
"one who follows the traditions of the Prophet."
10
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•The
Shia Muslims believe that following the Prophet
Muhammad's death, leadership should have passed
directly to his cousin/son-in-law, Ali. Throughout history,
Shia Muslims have not recognized the authority of
elected Muslim leaders, choosing instead to follow a line
of Imams which they believe have been appointed by
the Prophet Muhammad or God Himself. The word
"Shia" in Arabic means a group or supportive party of
people. The commonly-known term is shortened from
the historical "Shia-t-Ali," or "the Party of Ali." They are
also known as followers of "Ahl-al-Bayt" or "People of
the Household" (of the Prophet).
11
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•From
this initial question of political leadership, some
aspects of spiritual life have been affected and now
differ between the two groups of Muslims.
•Shia Muslims believe that the Imam is sinless by nature,
and that his authority is infallible as it comes directly
from God. Therefore, Shia Muslims often venerate the
Imams as saints and perform pilgrimages to their tombs
and shrines in the hopes of divine intercession.
12
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•Sunni
Muslims counter that there is no basis in Islam for
a hereditary privileged class of spiritual leaders, and
certainly no basis for the veneration or intercession of
saints. Sunni Muslims contend that leadership of the
community is not a birthright, but a trust that is earned
and which may be given or taken away by the people
themselves.
•Sunnis are Muslims who are considered the more
"orthodox" believers. Sunnis follow all of the most
traditional beliefs and actions.
13
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•Shia
Muslims also feel animosity towards some of the
companions of the Prophet Muhammad, based on their
positions and actions during the early years of discord
about leadership in the community. Many of these
companions (Abu Bakr, Umar, Aisha, etc.) have
narrated traditions about the Prophet's life and spiritual
practice. Shia Muslims reject these traditions (hadith)
and do not base any of their religious practices on the
testimony of these individuals. This naturally gives rise
to some differences in religious practice between the
two groups. These differences touch all detailed aspects
of religious life: prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, etc.
14
The
Difference
Between
Sunni
and
Shiite
•Sunni
Muslims make up the majority (85%) of Muslims
all over the world. Significant populations of Shia
Muslims can be found in Iran and Iraq, and large
minority communities in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and
Lebanon.
•It is important to remember that despite all of these
differences in opinion and practice, Shia and Sunni
Muslims share the main articles of Islamic belief and are
considered by most to be brethren in faith. In fact, most
Muslims do not distinguish themselves by claiming
membership in any particular group, but prefer to call
themselves simply, "Muslims."
15
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•And
this is why all that advice from various "counterinsurgency experts" -- including the Australian army
man who so impressed James Fallows (who consulted
"sixty experts" to find out what he thinks he knows about
how to deal with the Jihad) and Francis Daly, a
"counter-insurgency expert" (from campaigns against
non-Muslims, some 40 years ago) who, writing in the
New Duranty Times, does not mention Islam at all.
16
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•InthathistheOp/Ed
piece, Daly appears not to have any idea
belief-system of Islam not only matters, but is
indispensable for understanding what these so-called
"insurgencies" in Iraq or elsewhere are all about. They
are about power, about power within the Camp of Islam,
where ethnic and sectarian and economic differences
do divide. And they are about all Muslims within the
Camp of Islam against the entire Camp, as they see it,
of Non-Muslims. Not to be assuaged by the hearts-andminds of lavishing economic development on anyone.
17
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•Indeed,
the plutocrats of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf
sheikhdoms have used much of their wealth to pursue
and promote the Jihad. The better off Muslim states are,
the more disguised Jizyah they receive in the form of
foreign aid, and the more flows that manna from Allah
known as oil revenues, the more powerful the forces of
Jihad become. Prior to 1973, the doctrine and duty of
Jihad existed, as it had existed and had been acted
upon by Muslims for 1350 years. But it had fallen into
seeming desuetude only because, in the past hundred
years, the Western world had not only been more
powerful but was seen to be obviously so.
18
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•What
changed everything was the OPEC oil money -some ten trillion dollars since 1973 -- and the millions of
Muslims permitted to live behind enemy lines, in Infidel
nation-states. In those states they can and do cause all
kinds of trouble. They interfere with how those states
preserve their political and legal and social institutions,
and with how they attempt to exercise their own foreign
policy: the French government is backing out of
Lebanon because it is terrified of the reaction of the
Muslims within France, though no one has yet noted
this.
19
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•Any
"counter-insurgency" class in the American military,
or in any Infidel military, that does not deal with Islam,
with what is contained in the texts -- Qur'an, Hadith, and
the biography of Muhammad the Perfect Man – is
useless. Any course that presumes to pretend that an
"insurgency" in a Muslim country is just like an
insurgency by those Communists in postwar Greece or
Malaya, or by those Mau Mau in Kenya, and can be
dealt with using the same "hearts-and-minds" strategy
supplementing military campaigns, will be false, will be
missing the essential significance of Islam. It will be, in
short, worthless.
20
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•These
features include not owning up to the contents of
Islam, but offering that sly blend of taqiyya and tu-
quoque argumentation that we are all so familiar with. In
other words, many lax or unobservant Muslims, as long
as they continue to identify themselves as Muslims and
hence, as members of the umma, will continue to
defend Islam and to support it by protecting it from
inquiring Infidels -- and in other, more dangerous ways
as well.
21
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•We
Infidels simply have to rely on the historical
evidence, on the evidence of our senses, and on the
evidence of those Infidels who grew up in Muslimdominated societies (Copts from Egypt, Maronites and
other Christians from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Hindus and
Chinese from Malaysia or Indonesia), or from societies
where there is a Muslim population large enough to
support activities threatening to the larger non-Muslim
society (as in India).
22
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•Finally,
and perhaps must usefully, we must rely on the
evidence provided by the "defectors" from Islam, such
as Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Ali Sina, Irfan Khawaja,
Azam Kamguian, Walid Shoebat, Nonie Darwish, and
tens or hundreds of thousands of others, whose names
are not household words, but whose private testimony is
devastating.
23
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•Whatever
"techniques of counter-insurgency" may work
against those who are fighting for Communism and
economic "justice" has no relevance at all to the
problem of fighting the belief-system of Islam. That this
has escaped so many of these counter-insurgency
experts is not surprising.
24
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•Inbusiness
the same way, those in the "spreading democracy"
-- who get government and foundation money,
of course -- will be the last ones to admit that the "all
people want freedom" business is silly, dangerous, and
fails to consider the nature of Islamic religio-political
theory on the basis for any ruler's legitimacy. And those
who are in the "moderate Muslims are the answer"
racket, also to obtain still more, ever more, government
and foundation grants and the contributions of
individuals, will not admit just how shaky, mutable, and
unhelpful to Infidels reliance on that concept of
"moderate Muslims" is.
25
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•They
will never admit that the supposed usefulness of
"moderate Muslims" against the immoderate ones is no
substitute for the real divisions within Islam -- sectarian,
ethnic and economic -- that have been written about
here at Jihad Watch some 500 times. But of course,
others have a market niche to protect. If the money rolls
in to support the idea of encouraging "moderate
Muslims" and only worrying about those "Islamists,"
then "Moderate Muslims" (the "answer") versus
"Islamists" will be the theme, as it will be the content of
course, of the next grant application.
26
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•And
finally, the experts in "counter-insurgency" whose
discussions of "Islamic insurgency" or "Shi'a
•
insurgency" or "Sunni insurgency" always focusses on
that noun, that so-easy-to-deal-with noun, and never on
those difficult, but far more freighted with significance,
adjectives -- "Islamic," "Sunni" and "Shi'a."
It’s time they all gave themselves an education in the
doctrine, and practice, of Islam.
27
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•Once
they see the world through the prism of Islam,
once they understand the uncompromising division of
that world between Believer and Infidel, Dar al-Islam
and Dar al-Harb, they will think anew about "insurgency"
and about what the war aims of Infidels should always
be. "Freedom" and "democracy" are both flatly
contradicted by both the letter and spirit of Islam.
28
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•According
to the tenets of Islam, reinforced by the
attitudes and atmospherics to which those tenets give
rise in any society suffused with Islam, political and all
other forms of legitimacy are conferred not by the
expressed will of mere men, but by the revealed will of
Allah in the Qur'an (as glossed usefully in the Hadith),
and expressed most closely in the Holy Law of Islam, or
Shari'a.
29
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•"Freedom"
in the Western sense is allowing mere men
to dictate what should be on earth, and that, in Islam,
makes no sense.
•The
Administration has been incoherent in its
understanding of both Islam -- no one appears to have
thought the main task, after 9/11/2001, was to undergo
real study of Islam, -- and words such as "freedom" and
"democracy" were used without any study of whether or
not, in the history of Islam, these words had ever meant
anything, or what, if used today, they could possibly
mean.
30
Fitzgerald: Time to get an education
•The
American government, instead of taking as its goal
the weakening of the Camp of Islam, continues to
squander resources attempting to create a unified Iraqi
nation-state that will be impossible of attainment, and
that, were it to be attained, could not possibly be an
"ally" of the United States, but would inevitably revert to
Islam, to the Arab League, to the Organization of
Islamic Countries, and the best chance offered up to the
Infidels in a very long time, for exploiting both sectarian
(Sunni-Shi'a) and ethnic (Arab-Kurd) divisions within
Islam, would have been lost, in what would then be one
of the most colossal failures of foreign policy in
American history.
31
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•From the TimesOnline, with thanks to DFS:
•Afilmed
MUSLIM student told a terror trial yesterday that he
a video of British landmarks that prosecutors
•
claim was a visual guide for terrorists.
The locations in the film include Hyde Park, Big Ben,
Parliament Square, the London Eye, Edgware Road
Tube station and the Hilton Hotel in Park Lane,
Woolwich Crown Court heard.
32
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•Rauf Abdullah Mohammad, 26, an Iraqi minicab driver,
•
is charged with making a video likely to be useful to a
person committing or preparing an act of terrorism
contrary to the Terrorism Act 2000.
The prosecution claims that Mr Mohammad drove
around London making a film showing “high-profile
targets” to help Islamic terrorists to plan and carry out
an attack on the capital.
33
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•His friend, Maz Ibrahim, 25, a British Sudanese,
yesterday gave evidence for the defence, saying that he
was the unseen man holding a camcorder whose voice
was recorded in Arabic saying: “Rauf is planning a
bombing operation.”
•Oh
man, this is side-splitting stuff. Has anyone
contacted Leno?
34
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•In the background of the video can be heard religious
•
•
chants, sounds of machineguns and a missile
exploding, and poems about martyrdom, killing and
being killed in the name of Allah.
Religious chants? Killing and being killed in the name of
Allah? Rauf, you hockey puck! You kidder, you!
Everybody knows Islam is a religion of peace!
In fact, Paradise is guaranteed in the Qur'an to those
who "kill and are killed" for Allah -- see sura 9:111
35
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•Mr Mohammad, from Forest Gate, East London, can
•
•
allegedly be heard on the video discussing his hopes for
the killing of Tony Blair, President Bush, Silvio
Berlusconi and Donald Rumsfeld.
Stop it, Rauf! You're killing me! This is the funniest stuff
I've heard since The Day the Clown Cried!
The true interpretation of the hour-long video, extracts
from which have been shown several times to the jury,
is central to the arguments at Woolwich Crown Court.
36
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•Mr Ibrahim, of Southwark, southeast London, told the
jury that the video, which was made around September
2003, was no more than a tourist souvenir for overseas
relatives and that the terrorism chat was just an
example of the companions’ ironic sense of humour. He
said that his friend had wanted to make a tape to send
back to relatives and suggested going to famous places
in London.
37
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•Isn't it funny how, when it comes to jihad terrorism, there
is always a "true interpretation" that contradicts what
you see in front of your eyes? The Qur'an doesn't mean
"slay the unbelievers" (9:5) or beat your wife (4:34), and
this fellow wasn't planning a terror operation, he was
just kidding around. Tell me another, Rauf.
38
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•Lawrence McNulty, for the defence, took Mr Ibrahim
•
•
step-by-step through the tape. It begins with a busker in
a subway near Marble Arch. The camcorder holder
climbs steps to emerge into Hyde Park. He zooms in to
a road sign.
“I just like details of things,” Mr Ibrahim said.
Ah. Jokes with details. The best kind.
39
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•The film has a number of shots of police officers. Mr
•
Ibrahim explained that he wanted to show how helpful
British constables could be, for example giving people
directions.
“There’s a huge difference between the police in the UK
and the police back home,” he said. “Back home for no
reason they just do anything to you.”
40
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•After a long passage showing people at Speakers’
•
•
Corner, Mr Mohammad is filmed heading for his car. Mr
Ibrahim gets into the passenger seat.
The car stereo plays Islamic chants and the video pans
upwards to Paddington Green police station. The men
can be heard speaking.
“I was teasing him,” Mr Ibrahim said. “I said he was
planning a bombing operation. I used to always like to
tease him, calling him a terrorist. I used to make jokes
like that. It’s just a bit of a stereotype that people have
against certain individuals. It was just a joke because
people say that people with long beards are terrorists.”
41
The Humorous Side of
Jihad
•Next, Mr Mohammad is heard on the video discussing
•
•
killing the Prime Minister and Western leaders. Mr
Ibrahim said that he did not think that his friend had
been at all serious about killing Mr Blair.
As the film pans to show pretty women, Mr Mohammad
is heard to make a remark. Mr Ibrahim said: “He was
teasing me about filming the girls. He doesn’t really look
at girls. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have interest in
women, obviously.”
Obviously -- a funny word to be using amid all this fog of
misdirection.
42
WWJS
•“There's no doubt that this administration has made a
radical and unpressured departure from the basic
policies of all previous administrations including those
of both Republican and Democratic presidents... Under
all of its predecessors there was a commitment to
peace instead of preemptive war. Our country always
had a policy of not going to war unless our own security
was directly threatened and now we have a new policy
of going to war on a preemptive basis.”
Jimmy Carter
43